Email Versus Social Media

email versus social media

This well-detailed infographic from HostPapa provides more insight into how each medium – email or social media – should be utilized rather than whether one is a substitute for the other. They’re simply not. You should not be doing one or the other – you should be focused on doing both effectively.

  • 75% of all adults express email is their preferred communication method
  • Even among the 18-29 age group, email trumps social for commercial usage

While the infographic promotes email marketing as the winner, I don’t believe there should be a winner. They’re two types of mediums with very different opportunities. Email is a push medium where a company can send a message to a recipient when they’d like to. Social is a pull medium where you put the message out and hope that someone reads and responds (or shares).

My personal opinion is that no company should be applying resources in social media without having an effective email program first. This way… as prospects find you on social media and subscribe to your email, you can push them a message down the road that drives them to a conversion.

email-versus-social-infographic

Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr 

Douglas Karr is the founder of the Martech Zone and recognized expert on digital transformation. Doug is a Keynote and Marketing Public Speaker. He's the VP and cofounder of Highbridge, a firm specializing in assisting enterprise companies to digitally transform and maximize their technology investment utilizing Salesforce technologies. He's developed digital marketing and product strategies for Dell Technologies, GoDaddy, Salesforce, Webtrends, and SmartFOCUS. Douglas is also the author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies and co-author of The Better Business Book.

9 Comments

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      Hi Andy,

      It’s broadcasting but in a series of updates that hope to ‘pull’ prospects and customers back to your site. A status update, a bookmark, a tweet… all of them are published out there with the hopes of ‘pulling’ people in. Email, one the other hand, pushes your message to the person. It’s not all black and white, I’ll admit… but there is a difference.

      Thanks for joining the conversation!
      Doug

      Reply
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    Interesting post, Douglas. It really seems to come down to the fact that
    email is the most business-like medium. Many businesses don’t really
    find their clients or potential clients off social media, particularly
    businesses with a long sales cycle.

    Reply

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